Psychodynamic Therapy

Our therapists offer their own eclectic approach, catered to each individual client, while also having a foundation in attachment based, psychodynamic therapy. We address current needs while also looking back at your past to relate where these patterns come from.

Sarah has 3 years of experience using a psychodynamic framework with children and adults to explore the connection between the client's past and present.

My psychodynamic training and experience supports my clients to get to the root of the challenges they face in their close relationships and develop the tools and capacities to free themselves from their past patterns. I have completed an advanced 3 year training program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy from the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and I continue to train and consult weekly with two late career psychoanalysts.

I believe that our past creates the lens through which we see the world, including our relationship with those around us. Gaining insight into our patterns and these lenses can allow us greater choice and freedom in our present and future.

I am interested in the formation of our ego structure, the organization of our personality and how we view the world. I am tuned into the presence of defense mechanism, how they protect us and why they were formed. I care about how our past experience shape who we are as people. I am tuned into the transference and counter transference in the therapy room. This means, what is happening between therapist and client and making meaning of behaviors and feelings.

Psychodynamic therapy emphasizes that all of our thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by what we have been through. We learn about the world from our earlier experiences, and it often takes a thorough explanation of our earlier relationships to improve our current relational patterns.

I use psychodynamic therapy to help clients understand how past experiences, unconscious thoughts, and early relationships shape their present behavior and emotions. By exploring these deeper aspects of the self, clients can gain valuable insights into patterns that may be holding them back. This approach fosters self-awareness, healing, and lasting change, helping clients break free from old patterns and move toward healthier, more fulfilling lives.

I trained under psychodynamic clinicians and have a strong developmental trauma focus in my practice. I strongly believe that most people carry the experiences and relationships dynamics they experienced during childhood into their adults. Sometimes we need support in making these connections and developing new patterns.

Have you ever wondered if your childhood experiences shaped your current thoughts and feelings? Psychodynamic therapy may be the right fit for you if you are curious about who you are. Psychodynamic treatment can be completed within 15 sessions or less and is comparable to CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). This treatment modality allows clients to be past, present and forward in their thinking to resolve childhood traumas.

Psychodynamic therapy is one of many approaches I use. It looks for patterns in your life that aren't serving you well. Together we'll work to identify these patterns, understand them and help you make conscious changes.

Psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and attachment-oriented therapy are all different words for essentially the same thing. This kind of therapy is a depth-oriented therapy in which we follow the "red thread" of emotion to learn about who you are. We explore your past AND your present. We are curious about what you may be avoiding or hiding from yourself. We focus on your relational world, including the relationship between the two of us. We take a deep dive into your inner life.

Some of my clients wish to go deeper than just problem solving, symptom reduction, and skill-building. Employing aspects of psychodynamic therapy, I help people notice and review emotions, thoughts, early-life experiences, and beliefs to gain insight into their lives and present-day problems and to evaluate the patterns they have developed over time. Recognizing recurring patterns can help people see how they avoid distress or develop defense mechanisms to cope so that they can take steps to change those patterns. I draw on several different psychodynamic styles in order to tailor my approach to bet fit and help each individual client.